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BATON ROUGE -- It may be self-evident that American presidents are not ordinary people. But an LSU professor has stumbled upon some odd statistical evidence that says they are extraordinary even in the timing of their deaths.
Subhash Kak, a professor in LSU's electrical engineering department, accidentally discovered a statistical anomaly regarding U.S. presidents while doing research on complex system behavior.
"American presidents are more likely to die within a year after they have completed multiples of seven-and-a-half years of their lives. This has happened with more than twice the probability determined by chance," he said.
Kak took a list of the 35 presidents from George Washington to Richard Nixon and noted the ages at which they died. He then placed their ages into columns indicating that less than one year had passed after they had lived a multiple of 7.5 years, less than two years had passed, less than three years had passed and so on.
"We have a total of 35 individuals, so we expect the distribution in each of the 7.5 slots to be about the same, or just a fraction less than five individuals each," he said.
What he found, however, was that 10 presidents had died within a year after living a multiple of 7.5 years -- twice the number statistics would predict. Only one president died within two years of the multiple, and only one died within the 7.5 year multiple itself. All the rest were laid to rest at their statistically expected times.
What does Kak make of this anomaly?
"This data is offered only as a contribution to assorted trivia about the presidents," he commented.
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